<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Equal and Indivisible by ranichi17</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28045386">Equal and Indivisible</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranichi17/pseuds/ranichi17'>ranichi17</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>16th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF, The Tudors (TV), Wolf Hall Series - Hilary Mantel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Butterfly Effect, Epistolary, Footnotes, For Want of a Nail, Gen, POV Outsider, Unreliable Narrator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:08:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,922</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28045386</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranichi17/pseuds/ranichi17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On the dawn of the 25th of January 1536, after a particularly nasty fall from his horse during a joust, Henry VIII, King of England, breathes his last. So starts the tumultuous rise and reign of Mary, the first of her name, Queen of England.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSweetestThing/gifts">TheSweetestThing</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Paula, who actually listens to me yammer on about this idea.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you happen to come from AH.com, you already know what this is about. But for the uninitiated, this came about because that line in <i>Wolf Hall</i> where Cromwell sends for Mary when Henry almost dies during the joust because “he cannot hold the throne for an infant in the cradle” has been bothering me for the past seven years, so for NaNo this year, I threw caution to the wind and wrote this. I guess that probably means this also counts as a <i>Wolf Hall</i> fic.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Sketch of the Lady Mary, daughter of King Henry, done by Hans Holbein in 1536</strong>
</p><p> </p><p><em>“No one could have disproved that this august Lady was the daughter of Kings.”</em><br/>
— apocryphal quote, usually attributed to Eustace Chapuys, Imperial Ambassador to England</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. January 1536</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“For England, the year 1536 could not have begun more auspiciously enough. On the 7th of January, during a particularly bitter afternoon frost on the More, Catherine, the abandoned and betrayed wife of King Henry VIII, breathed her last while held in the arms of her oldest and dearest friend, Mary, Lady Willoughby. Writing to the King on her deathbed, she entreated her husband to be a good father to their daughter, to whom she left her furs and her Spanish cross, requested that all her servants be duly recompensed, and asked that five hundred Masses be said for her soul and to be buried in a convent of the Observant Friars.</p><p>Rumours of poisoning, said to have been slipped into the Welsh ale she so loved, soon abounded, as the embalmer who was tasked with preparing Catherine for her final rest was said to have ‘found all the internal organs as healthy and normal as possible, with the exception of the heart, which was quite black and hideous to look at.’ Today, however, we might diagnose this as a cancer of the heart.</p><p>At court, however, celebrations of her death were loud, almost garish. Courtiers were told to dress in a merry shade of yellow, while the King was said to have shown off little Elizabeth and afterwards danced the night away in Anne’s arms. The threat of war was over, Anne was secure on her throne, almost certainly pregnant with a prince. Henry’s golden reign was sure to begin anew.</p><p>Or so they thought.”</p><p>— Edla Kirkbride, <em>Humble and Loyal: Catherine of Aragon and her reign</em></p><p> </p><p>“Two weeks later, on the 24th, still high on the celebrations of Katherine’s death, the king organized a joust at Greenwich. It proved to be his final performance, as at the tiltyard the king was unhorsed by an opponent. Toppling to the ground as the horse sped away, his full steel armour collapsed on top of him, breaking his neck. By the time the royal physicians were able to tend to him, Henry had already slipped into a coma.</p><p><a id="return2.1" name="return2.1"></a>Despite all the prayers and vigils of his court and all of England, the king never regained consciousness, slipping away from this mortal coil several hours later, in the wee hours of the 25th of January at the Palace of Greenwich. So passed Henry, the eighth of that name, King of England <sup>[<a href="#note2.1">1</a>]</sup>.”</p><p>— Alastair Goodlowe, <em>Henry Rex</em></p><p> </p><p>“The Duke of Norfolk, ever vigilant about intrigue, was the first to arrive at the Queen’s bedchamber, telling his niece the news himself. Anne, who was kneeling on her prie-dieu to fervently pray for the life of the King, was said to have swooned and wept in the arms of her uncle at the news of her husband’s death, but not before her hand ‘flew protectively to her goodly belly, for if the child she was carrying was lost, then England would be sure to follow.’</p><p>Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, was nowhere to be found, however, slipping away undetected as a lone rider still wearing jousting armour during the pandemonium caused by the king’s fall. Even while the king breathed his last, Suffolk did not return, although he later said that it ached his heart not to be at the side of the friend he’d known since boyhood at the time he’d needed him the most.</p><p>As dawn breaks upon England, a weary rider brings his tidings to a grieving court: the King’s daughters, bastard and legitimate, were nowhere to be found, disappearing from Hatfield whilst the ladies of the household were unknowingly drugged at dinner.”</p><p>— Immaculata Applegarth, <em>Intrigue at the Tudor Court</em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p><a id="note2.1" name="note2.1"></a><sup>1</sup> And here is our POD: Instead of merely losing consciousness after a nasty tumble and possibly a concussion during the joust, Henry instead breaks his neck during the fall, dying way earlier than scheduled. <sup>[<a href="#return2.1">return to text</a>]</sup></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Queen’s Gambit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No one knows for sure how Mary took the news of her father’s death, or indeed how she came to know of it. A letter from the Imperial ambassador to Emperor Charles suggests that either she or her uncle Suffolk bribed a sympathetic stablehand earlier in her captivity to ferry messages to and fro her supporters, and through this came the fateful note that informed her of her father’s demise and a plot for her escape whilst Suffolk waited for her in a nearby inn. Another propagandist by the name of Saunders posits that Suffolk himself dressed as a stablehand to sneak into Hatfield and approach Mary without anyone else being the wiser.</p><p><a id="return3.1" name="return3.1"></a>However means Mary found out that she was now bereft of both father and mother, it was her who actively put into motion the succeeding events. A few weeks prior, Mary had raised the prospect of fleeing to the continent with the Imperial ambassador, telling him in veiled phrases that if she had something to drug her gaolers with, then she might easily pass through the window undetected and find some way to open the gates. While the ambassador wisely advised her that escaping to the continent carried a high risk of discovery and capture, he did however provide her with a sleeping draught that she kept hidden in a pomander at all times <sup>[<a href="#note3.1">1</a>]</sup>. Once Mary received the news, she says in a letter to her aunt Margaret of Scots, she had composed herself and set an agreeable expression upon her face, and, pretending that she was now reconciled to the patent falsehood of her bastardy and servitude, she offered her services to the household cook for whatever use she might be found in the kitchen. Afterwards, when no one was looking, Mary emptied the vial of sleeping draught onto the pot of stew that was to be served that day, using the excuse of fasting to grieve for the soul of her poor mother so as not to be enjoined to partake in the feast.</p><p>All Mary had to do now was bide her time and wait. It was an act of hitherto unknown guile that gave Mary the idea to take her sister with her on her escape, knowing that without her sister to prop up as a puppet, the Concubine and her family will have no chance to gain control of England and spread their vile heresy.”</p><p>— Nan Tulloch, <em>Queen’s Gambit</em></p><p> </p><p>“Some time after the matins were said in the chapel at the Palace of Elsyng, a party of riders knocked at the gates, insisting to see the lord of the house, Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland, who was in residence at the time. When asked by the guards to show their colours first, the rider at the head removed the hood of his cloak, revealing himself to be Charles Suffolk, come on an urgent news. The Earl, who was still breaking his fast, was informed, and Charles and his companions were immediately ushered inside and invited to take part on the meal.</p><p>Once inside the palace’s great hall, Suffolk approached the earl and told him of yesterday’s events, knowing Rutland’s tendencies to avoid attending tournaments. On this front, the Earl of Rutland had an advantage, interrupting Suffolk to tell him that the king has breathed his last but two hours ago and chiding him about his absence at the deathbed of his dearest friend.</p><p>As the Duke of Suffolk stood in stunned silence, one of his riding companions let their cloak slip to the floor, revealing a shock of red-gold Tudor hair. It was Mary, who stared on as she held on tighter to little Elizabeth’s hand and reminded Rutland of their shared blood, Rutland being a second cousin of the Tudors through Anne of York, imploring him to provide sanctuary to her in their time of need, as he once did when Mary was first stripped of her honours and forcibly ripped away from her mother’s custody.</p><p>When Suffolk recovered himself enough to speak, he added his voice to his niece’s, telling him about how Henry had always cherished the pearl of his world and only ever stripped her of her standing in court under Queen Anne’s influence, and now that the king was gone, it was left to Mary’s kinsmen to shield her from whatever harm the Boleyns would surely shower upon her.</p><p>Still without a reply, Mary, knowing how Rutland had already profited from the Dissolution and would be reluctant to turn the tide back to the Papacy, took a page from her grandfathers’ book of diplomacy, promising that the nobility would be allowed to keep the lands and the riches they had already taken from the monasteries, but only if they swore their allegiance to her.</p><p>Rutland went down on his knees, hailing her as Queen Mary, first of her name, with Suffolk and the rest of the household following suit.”</p><p>— Alexandra Huber, <em>Princess, Bastard, Queen: Elizabeth of York and her granddaughters</em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p><a id="note3.1" name="note3.1"></a><sup>1</sup> Mary actually did raise the possibility of drugging the ladies in the household at Hatfield to Chapuys in our timeline, but unlike here, Chapuys discouraged her from doing that since Hatfield was too far offshore that they’d just be discovered if she tries to flee to the Imperial court at Brussels. <sup>[<a href="#return3.1">return to text</a>]</sup></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Not-So-Merry Wives of Windsor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Once Norfolk heard that the king’s daughters had gone missing, he immediately sent orders to set more guards around his son-in-law Richmond, who was currently staying at Windsor. His own daughter Mary was also now allowed to attend to her husband without a chaperone, contrary to the wishes of the late king that the marriage shall not be consummated until both parties became of age. The message then was clear: should it come to it, Norfolk will rather back the claim of an indisputably illegitimate male rather than that of two females of dubious legitimacy.”</p><p>— Immaculata Applegarth, <em>Intrigue at the Tudor Court</em></p><p> </p><p>“Anne had now lost the love of her life, for whom she had fought the better part of a decade to stay by his side as his queen. But worse was yet to come. Still reeling from the suddenness of her widowhood, a rider from Hatfield arrived at Windsor, demanding an audience with the queen. With him was a message for Anne, and an express command from her aunt Lady Bryan that it was only for Her Majesty’s eyes. While we do not know exactly what the letter said, as Anne had the parchment thrown into the fireplace in her fury, we can guess at parts of it, as the evening before, Henry’s half-Spanish daughter drugged the household and absconded with Elizabeth. Lady Rochford, who was attending her sister by marriage at that moment, tells us that Anne ‘flew into such a fury that the rafters of the audience chamber were like to shake at her screams.’</p><p>And then, Fate struck Anne down once more.</p><p>Weeping over the loss of her husband and wracked with anxieties over the fate of her daughter who was now in the custody of a stepdaughter who never capitulated to her, Anne suddenly collapsed unconscious into the arms of her dumbstruck ladies, as bright red crimson blood slowly seeped through her kirtle.”</p><p>— Annabelle Webster, <em>La Plus Heureuse</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Let Slip the Dogs of War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><a id="return5.1" name="return5.1"></a>“When news arrived that Rutland and Suffolk had declared for the Princess Mary, Chapuys rode post-haste to Elsyng, while his valet sent a missive to his Imperial master, now at court in Brussels, urging the Emperor that the time was now ripe to strike at the heart of the English heresy. Charles, ever a pragmatist, left it unanswered, choosing instead to watch how events would play out. <sup>[<a href="#note5.1">1</a>]</sup></p><p>Ushered into the great hall of the castle, Chapuys immediately swept into a bow before the throne, where Mary sat wearing a gown in the rich colour of Tudor green and a coronet of steel, hurriedly forged by the smiths at Elsyng, atop a head of fiery red hair hanging loose about her shoulders. Mary, taking this as a sign that her imperial cousin was on her side, smiled and bid her old friend to rise, saying ‘Praise God that our sorrows are at an end.’</p><p>For five days Chapuys stayed at the makeshift court, witnessing as the new queen amassed support from both the old aristocracy and the commons who desired a return to the old faith. Chief of them was the Countess of Salisbury, Lady Margaret Pole, who herself had a claim to the throne by virtue of being a member of the House of York. Upon hearing that her old charge had proclaimed herself queen, the Countess fled from Le Heber, her London residence, to pledge her support, bringing with her money, provisions, and armed men to expand the queen’s resources. The balance was now shifting.”</p><p>— Laurent Michaux, <em>Le Savoyard: Eustace Chapuys and the Tudor Court</em></p><p> </p><p>“Queenship was something Mary had been preparing for her entire life, and her actions at Elsyng proved that her skills were more than adequately honed by her apprenticeship as administrator of Ludlow. She received petitioners with good grace, smiled at those who bent the knee to her rule, and set her new seal, a pomegranate dimidiated with a Tudor rose fashioned from her mother’s old heraldic badge, on letters urging those who have yet to swear their allegiance to help her secure her crown. Mary also sent out messengers and criers to the local magnates and the nearby towns, persuading not just the landowners but also their tenants to join her cause. Elizabeth was kept close at hand, with Mary having her half-sister sit with her at all times, even sleeping with her in the same bed as heavily-armed guards were posted at the doors.</p><p><a id="return5.2" name="return5.2"></a>Her uncle Suffolk was hard at work, too, rousing his tenants to muster up an army and adding his voice to Mary’s during council meetings. Though we have no evidence, it is still widely accepted that Suffolk was the source of a missive that stated that King Henry had not died of a broken neck, but was actually smothered in bed by the power-hungry Norfolk who was ‘out to usurp the crown and destroy the noble blood of England.’ <sup>[<a href="#note5.2">2</a>]</sup></p><p>The missive did its work, setting off in London an uproarious mob of around 300 headed straight for Greenwich, demanding the heads of Norfolk and his allies as justice for the murder of the king and the abuse of the rightful heiress to the crown.”</p><p>— Alexandra Huber, <em>Princess, Bastard, Queen: Elizabeth of York and her granddaughters</em></p><p> </p><p><a id="return5.3" name="return5.3"></a>“While his niece and her unborn child’s life hung in the balance, Norfolk prepared Greenwich for a siege, posting archers at the walls and amassing weapons and gunpowder for whatever the situation may require. Letters stamped with the Great Seal soon followed, summoning the late King’s Privy Council and declaring Norfolk regent until either a son was born to the Queen widow’s highness or the Princess Elizabeth became of age. It also declared Mary as a high traitress and rebuked her presumption to claim the crown when the Act of Succession declared her a bastard, urging the good people of England to turn away from her ‘wicked mischief’ and deliver the princess from her clutches. Outside London, no one cried out for Norfolk or Elizabeth, aside from the herald who made the proclamation and was later chased out by an angry mob. In a tavern by the Thames, a young man who shouted ‘Long live Queen Mary’ was arrested and sent to Newgate, where his ears were nailed to the pillory and then cut off. <sup>[<a href="#note5.3">3</a>]</sup></p><p>Two days after Henry’s death, the bloodshed started, when Norfolk ordered his archers to rain fire over the mob gathering outside the walls crying out for his blood, killing about two hundred of those who had gathered under full view of Norfolk and the Queen Dowager. It was a deeply unpopular move, with his would-be allies turning away from him in disgust and leaving the Howard clan isolated.”</p><p>— Celestiel Gale, <em>House of Treason</em></p><p> </p><p>“When Anne awoke the next day, it was to a cold bed and an empty womb. Forcing herself to get out of bed despite the advice of the royal physicians, Anne ordered her ladies to dress her in white mourning, a tradition of French queens, putting on a simple crown over her widow’s veil before leaving her chambers in search of her uncle Norfolk. Anne implored her uncle to think of her daughter’s safety before the crown, reminding him that without Elizabeth, the throne of England remained empty. Norfolk rebuffed the queen, pointedly telling her that if not for her carelessness, they would ‘have soon had a Prince of Wales, but as a prince was now out of the question, the king still had other heirs aplenty,’ hinting that Henry Fitzroy would soon be crowned.</p><p>Anne went red, then white with rage at her uncle’s betrayal, storming off just in time to watch Norfolk’s archers shooting down the angry mob outside. The queen cried out against this excess of violence, but the damage was done. What little sympathy the commons had for ‘the Concubine’ plummeted, bolstered by the unfounded belief that Anne, not Norfolk, had ordered the massacre.”</p><p>— Annabelle Webster, <em>La Plus Heureuse</em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><a id="note5.1" name="note5.1"></a><sup>1</sup> Not highly unlikely, as Charles did the same thing re: Jane Grey. <sup>[<a href="#return5.1">return to text</a>]</sup></p><p><a id="note5.2" name="note5.2"></a><sup>2</sup> IOTL, the “destroy the noble blood of England” quote was actually from Richard Troughton, bailiff of South Witham, Lincolnshire, in his petition to the Privy Council to support Mary as queen. <sup>[<a href="#return5.2">return to text</a>]</sup></p><p><a id="note5.3" name="note5.3"></a><sup>3</sup> This happened IOTL during the Jane Grey debacle as well, when Gilbert Potter shouted that Mary was the rightful queen, except that he was sent to Cheapside, not Newgate. <sup>[<a href="#return5.3">return to text</a>]</sup></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Acts of Treason</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Three days into his virtual house arrest, with only his wife and her brother Surrey for company, Henry finally obtained news of his father, with the messenger from Howard telling the young duke that Henry VIII had already breathed his last. While Henry was still processing the servant’s words, the messenger went down on his knees, hailing Henry Fitzroy as the rightful King of England. Henry’s eyes went wide, then shook his head and bid the messenger rise, saying that ‘he cannot be Sovereign, for his lady sister was the true inheritrix of the Crown.’ The choice of wording was a pragmatic move, as no one asked Henry to clarify exactly which sister he’d meant by it. Despite this denial, Henry was told to prepare himself for his coronation, of which the Duke of Norfolk had already scheduled for the coming week.”</p><p>— Medea Fitzroy, <em>“I am Her Majesty’s leal servant”: The Story of Henry Fitzroy, the Nine Days’ King</em></p><p> </p><p>“Despite the Queen’s protests to the contrary, Norfolk put her father Wiltshire in command of the royal troops. A council meeting was held shortly after, but only a handful of the late King’s privy councillors attended, most of them pleading illness of some kind. There it was decided that as the king left no legitimate heirs, Fitzroy would be declared king in due course as the most senior male claimant, with Elizabeth as heir presumptive as Anne had married Henry in good faith. Wiltshire capitulated, knowing about Fitzroy’s continued ill health and deciding that Elizabeth becoming queen later on was better than her never being crowned at all, blissfully unaware that his brother-in-law had ordered Fitzroy’s marriage be consummated.</p><p>Wiltshire left Greenwich with a retinue the next morning, where a mob of Londoners had gathered outside of the gates, most of them connected in some way to the victims of the previous day’s massacre, barely kept away by the watchmen lining the streets.</p><p>Still within sight of the castle, a woman slipped between the guards and stood in Earl’s way, his horse rearing up in surprise. When Wiltshire managed to calm the spooked destrier again, it was to the sight of a badly mangled corpse of a child held in the woman’s arms, another of Norfolk’s many victims. When he met the woman’s eyes, she began to shriek, calling the Boleyns murderers and spitting curses upon them. The woman was dragged away, and the march continued, but her words had already ignited the crowd, and everywhere Wiltshire turned, there were boos and jeers with the occasional defiant shouts that hailed Mary as queen, as filth and rotting fruit were thrown at the party.</p><p>Wiltshire and his retinue only got as far as Royal Hill before chaos erupted. A handful of men slipped out of the crowd and dragged the Earl from his saddle as the horse was climbing up the hill, his magnificent black stallion rearing away, presumably later feasted on by the mob. His retinue drew their swords, slashing at the crowd to rescue their commander, but they, too, were dragged down, not before slaughtering those who first dared. Others still ripped the Boleyn heraldic badge from their doublet, abandoning their duties to their liege lord as they tried to blend into the crowd towards safety.</p><p>Norfolk, outraged at the news, immediately enforced a curfew, declaring that any man found on the streets after six in the evening will be killed, and ordered his household guards to search for Wiltshire, whom he hoped would still be alive, omitting to report the events to the Queen who was now in seclusion to properly mourn for the husband still lying in state at the palace chapel.</p><p>As the bells of Westminster announced the seventh hour of the evening, so too did it herald a worse tragedy for the Norfolk regime. A cart was wheeled into the courtyard preceded by the household guards, a bloodied sheet covering whatever was underneath. Norfolk demanded to know what it was, and no one dared to speak at first, until a certain Sir James Tyrell gathered his courage and rode up to the Duke, recounting the grisly tale as the sheet was lifted up.</p><p>The Earl of Wiltshire had been found in a bank by the Thames, stabbed two dozen times in different parts of his body, stripped of his clothes and so bloodied that the guards had overlooked his corpse at first.”</p><p>— Immaculata Applegarth, <em>Intrigue at the Tudor Court</em></p><p> </p><p>“Exactly a week after her father’s death, a little past noon on the first day of February 1536, a splendid white palfrey, fit for a queen, was saddled, and Mary rode out to an inspiring sight. Her royal standard, laboured on for several sleepless days by the town’s best seamstresses, was unfurled to its full glory in witness of all those gathered in the courtyard. Her forces, two thousand in total, were arrayed in full battle gear, lead by her Lieutenant-Generals Suffolk and Montague. Mary’s horse galloped into the yard to cheers of ‘Long live Queen Mary!’ and ‘Death to all traitors!’ as helmets were thrown high up into the air. Mary beamed at the sight, sitting confidently in her saddle also in full armour as she thanked ‘her good Englishmen’ for pledging support to her cause, telling them that God was on their side and condemned Norfolk as a ‘most errant traitor,’ putting a price on his head.</p><p><a id="return6.1" name="return6.1"></a>Mary dismounted after her speech, as the roars of the crowd grew louder, inspecting her troops on foot for three as she spoke to her men ‘with an exceptional kindness … winning the men’s hearts’ in the process. <sup>[<a href="#note6.1">1</a>]</sup></p><p>That same evening, a cloaked rider arrived at Elsyng, his clothing dusty from riding post-haste all the way from London. The rider’s hood was forcibly removed by the guards, revealing him to be Sir William FitzWilliam, late the Treasurer of the Household. FitzWilliam was brought to the queen, manhandled by soldiers on either side of him to prevent any sudden movement. Kneeling before the throne, FitzWilliam produced from his sleeve a slip of parchment, signed by himself, the Chancellor Audley, and the Secretary Cromwell, proclaiming their allegiance and recognizing her claim as Queen. Mary’s daring coup was now at its climax.”</p><p>— Nan Tulloch, <em>Queen’s Gambit</em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><a id="note6.1" name="note6.1"></a><sup>1</sup> Mary actually did inspect her troops on foot for three hours IOTL during her rebellion against Jane Grey. <sup>[<a href="#return6.1">return to text</a>]</sup></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Honestly, did you really think Mary and Elizabeth were the only ones to inherit Henry VII’s sneakiness? Also, someone had to be sacrificed for the ASOIAF reference, and I do actually feel bad for sacrificing Wiltshire.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Fall of the House of Howard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“With Wiltshire’s unfortunate demise becoming public knowledge, support for Norfolk’s regime ebbed further away, and as the night deepened, a handful of Henry’s privy councillors escaped Norfolk’s guards, rendezvousing at Austin Friars, the residence of the King’s secretary Thomas Cromwell. <a id="return7.1" name="return7.1"></a>There, they drew up a proclamation declaring that ‘the Crown belongs rightfully, by direct succession, to My Lady Mary, the lawful and natural daughter of our King Henry VIII,’ <sup>[<a href="#note7.1">1</a>]</sup> enjoining anyone who had already proclaimed allegiance to Fitzroy that ‘the time is not yet too late to amend your sin and reclaim your lost honours.’ It was then decided that FitzWilliam be the one to set out for Elsyng to pledge support to Mary and beg for pardon on behalf of the entire Council.</p><p>Still, there were others who were not of the same mind, in particular the Archbishop Cranmer, who was unwilling to embrace the idea of Mary as queen and the threat of a return to the Papacy. Later on, when Mary was secure on her throne, Cranmer would try to flee the country, only to be captured as he tried to board a passenger ship with his mistress.</p><p>By the fourth of February, the resolve of the Norfolk faction had crumbled entirely. The warships <em>Peter Pomegranate</em> and <em>Mary Willoughby</em> had mutinied, defecting their forces to Mary, as Baynard’s Castle, formerly the residence of Katheryn of Aragon, whose retinue never forgot about the maltreatment of their former mistress, did the same. Rumours also swirled that when FitzWilliam rode towards Elsyng, he had brought with him the entirety of the royal treasury to give to Mary’s cause, convincing the few others who remained in Norfolk’s faction that he was now bankrupt and without support.”</p><p>— Celestiel Gale, <em>House of Treason</em></p><p> </p><p>“It was the Duke of Norfolk himself who announced to Henry that he was no longer king, pulling down the standards that hung from the walls whilst the young duke and his wife were dining in his chambers. Tradition has it that Henry breathed a sigh of relief at this news, but the harsh realities of Tudor politics must have soon set in and chilled him to his core — men had been executed for far less than daring to claim the crown. Henry’s brief reign had ended in disaster, and he was now a prisoner once again.”</p><p>— Medea Fitzroy, <em>“I am Her Majesty’s leal servant”: The Story of Henry Fitzroy, the Nine Days’ King</em></p><p> </p><p>“Still ensconced within Greenwich, Howard would have heard the celebrations outside the city as the heralds proclaimed Mary as queen. Streets overflowed with ale, caps were thrown in the air to shouts of ‘God the save the Queen,’ bells rang in churches all over London, money was freely given away to beggars, and everywhere there were bonfires and banquets. Mary was now the undisputed queen, and the seal had barely begun to dry on the warrant for the arrest of the Duke of Norfolk before she and her party began to ride in triumph to London.”</p><p>— Mara Russel,<em> Veritas Temporis Filia: England’s First Queen</em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><a id="note7.1" name="note7.1"></a><sup>1</sup> The wording comes from a speech by the Earl of Arundel IOTL when the Privy Council agreed to defect to Mary. <sup>[<a href="#return7.1">return to text</a>]</sup></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Maria Regina</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was written many months ago, but I just kinda sort of forgot to upload it. Oops. That’s on me.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“On the ninth of February, Mary and her sizable retinue left Elsyng, riding at a steady pace towards London. Her first stop was at Mount Pleasant in East Barnet, where Mary had her first council meeting to discuss what was to be done with the traitors. While in residence, Mary received her first petitioner as undisputed queen: Elizabeth, the injured Duchess of Norfolk, whose train was still dusty from the road from her residence in Redbourne, Hertfordshire. Pleading to see the queen, the duchess was received into Mary’s apartments at around eleven o’clock in the evening. Mary was prepared to deliver an admonishment to the duchess about her husband’s treason, when the duchess went down on her knees, imploring Mary that she and her children were innocent of her husband’s plot and reminding Mary of her unwavering support to Queen Catherine all throughout The Great Matter. Mary’s expression softened, and she bid the duchess rise, requesting that she join her retinue.”</p><p>— Nan Tulloch, <em>Queen’s Gambit</em></p><p> </p><p>“Norfolk had tried to sought refuge within the merchant houses of London, but none would dare offend the queen. When Lord Montagu finally came to arrest him in his residence at Lambeth, Norfolk expressed hope that the little girl dandled on the king’s knees and called the pearl of his world so many years ago would show him clemency. The baron’s reply was gruff and to the point: ‘You should have begged for mercy sooner, Your Grace.’ The Duke of Norfolk was then conducted to the Tower with an armed escort, there to await the Queen’s judgment alongside his children, his niece and nephew, and the unlucky Duke of Richmond.”</p><p>— Celestiel Gale, <em>House of Treason</em></p><p> </p><p>“At eight in the evening of February 18, her twentieth birthday, Mary entered the heart of her kingdom, London, accompanied by gentlemen, knights and their squires, various lords, sergeant at arms, trumpeters, and heralds. Mary was dressed in a gown of rich purple, with sleeves slashed with gold and a kirtle of satin set with pearls and trimmed with fur to guard against the midwinter chill. Around her neck hung a thick gold chain with her mother’s Spanish cross, apparently blessed by the Holy Father himself, while a headdress embroidered with gold thread and studded with jewels sat atop her head. Her white palfrey was also dazzlingly attired with a saddle covered by cloth of gold. Behind her rode her uncle Charles, the Duke of Suffolk, who bore the Sword of State, followed by the Queen’s half-sister Elizabeth, the Queen’s former governess, the Countess of Salisbury, the Duchess of Norfolk, brought back into the fold, the Marchioness of Exeter, wife of the Queen’s cousin Henry Courtenay, and various other peeresses, gentlewomen, and ladies-in-waiting of the queen’s train, numbering ten thousand in total. At Aldergate, the Lord Mayor knelt before Mary, presenting to her the sceptre of her office and welcoming her into the city as trumpets sounded from the battlement to pay homage to their queen.</p><p>The streets included in the procession route had been swept clean the day before, the roads laid with gravel to prevent the riders’ horses from slipping, and festive tapestries were hung all over the surrounding houses where crowds of people had stood to welcome Mary. Everywhere the procession passed, there were shouts of ‘Long live the Queen’ and ‘God save Queen Mary’ as members of the city’s guilds lined the streets, all in their best livery.</p><p>Finally, the riders arrived at their destination, the Tower of London, where Mary was met by Sir William Kingston, constable of the Tower. Standing beside him were the Queen Dowager and her brother, the new Earl of Wiltshire, with the Queen Dowager dressed in resplendent French mourning and Wiltshire a contrast in rich black. The Queen ordered her horse to stop, glancing down momentarily at the Boleyns. The Queen Dowager, white-faced and puffy-eyed, broke into a curtsy so low that her knees touched the wet grass, as her brother likewise bowed low. Mary tilted her head and smiled, ordering the procession to proceed once more. She had won.”</p><p>— Mara Russel, <em>Veritas Temporis Filia: England’s First Queen</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Spoils of War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Anne must have been relieved to glimpse her beloved daughter in the Queen’s procession, apparently unharmed. It wouldn’t last, however, as the next day she would be held in the Tower, no longer as Queen Dowager, but as prisoner. Mary had her stepmother charged with conspiracy against the Queen’s government by allegedly plotting to ‘disrupt the natural succession and crown the usurper Richmond’ alongside her uncle Norfolk. Anne was also accused of seducing the late King Henry away from his lawful wife ‘by use of such mystical charms.’ Five days later, a bill was laid before Parliament declaring that Anne was never Henry’s lawful wife, and that therefore her daughter Elizabeth was now a bastard. Curiously, despite stripping her of her title as Queen, Mary allowed Anne to keep her title and incomes as Marquess of Pembroke.</p><p><a id="return9.1" name="return9.1"></a>The former queen was tried before a jury of her peers a week after her arrest, the judges preselected for her to have as hostile an audience as possible: Sir Giles Alington, whose wife Alice was stepdaughter to Thomas More, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk and Mary’s foremost supporter, Edward Clinton, 9th Baron Clinton and husband of the king’s former mistress Elizabeth Blount, who was desperate to win the Queen’s favour to pardon his stepson, Henry Pole, Lord Montacute, the Queen’s cousin, and finally Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, Anne’s former fiancé. The charges were all laid out before her, but Anne, defiant until the end, plead not guilty to all of them. <sup>[<a href="#note9.1">1</a>]</sup></p><p>The trial lasted five hours in total, the length of which Anne must have spent in agony. What was to become of her? No Queen of England had been tried before. Was she to be executed like a common criminal? Exiled and deliberately forgotten, like the queen that she had supplanted? Finally, the peers of the realm returned to their seats, giving their verdicts one by one, starting with the lowest rank: ‘Guilty, guilty, guilty,’ like a cacophony of ravens before the carnage. The Duke of Suffolk then pronounced her sentence, still spiteful towards Anne until the end:</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em><a id="return9.2" name="return9.2"></a>‘Because thou has offended our sovereign the queen’s grace by conspiring to deprive her of her natural right to the crown, and also through offences such as thy wanton ways have conceived that ere our lord the king had been seduced away from his true and lawful wife, the law of the realm is this, that thou repent of thy wicked ways by humbling thyself to the commons, and to walk bare of feet and without any adornments towards the most holy cross of Saint Paul, and then to return here within the Tower, to be held until the queen’s pleasure shall be further known of this matter.’ <sup>[<a href="#note9.2">2</a>]</sup></em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p><a id="return9.3" name="return9.3"></a>Anne must have been secretly relieved to hear that her sentence did not spell the end of her life, and indeed, we have eyewitness accounts of Anne constantly putting a hand to the back of her neck while the jury was deliberating, as if she was already feeling the cold blade of the axe upon it. As the spectators were sent into uproar over such a ‘light sentencing,’ Anne began to address the peers that were gathered, falling to her knees and ‘requesting the lords present to go in her name to Her Majesty, the Queen, and beseech her to forgive the many wrongs the pride of a thoughtless, unfortunate woman had brought upon her.’ <sup>[<a href="#note9.3">3</a>]</sup></p><p>That Sunday, on the 27th of February 1536, Anne accordingly went on her walk of penitence, wearing only her kirtle and bearing a taper in her hand, flanked by two guardsmen from the Tower. The former queen attracted attention along the way, and despite the guards posted along the route to prevent a riot from erupting, they were unable to stop the crowd from flinging jeers and insults at Anne. At one point, Anne was also hit on the face by a rotten fruit.</p><p>After her penance, Anne was brought back to the Tower as the queen’s councillors wrote a provision for her living arrangements at the Abbey of the Minoresses of St Clare without Aldgate, where Anne was later forced into her retirement, condemned to spend the rest of her days as a Poor Clare.”</p><p>— Annabelle Webster, <em>La Plus Heureuse</em></p><p> </p><p>“Two weeks after Mary’s triumphant procession into London, Norfolk was tried and condemned to death, after an attainder was laid against him stripping him of his ducal title. During his short stay at the Tower, he expressed remorse at his misjudgement of the Queen, begging pardon and declaring that he had always been a true and devout Catholic. Faced with the looming shadow of an axe upon his neck, Norfolk asked to speak with a ‘man of learning for the instructing and quieting of his soul.’ Mary sent him Stephen Gardiner, who relished on the agony of his sometime colleague. It is unknown what passed behind the walls of the dank fortress, and if Gardiner promised him mercy, he would be sore disappointed.</p><p>Thomas Howard, the former Duke of Norfolk, went to the scaffold on the 15th of March 1536, in witness of a crowd of about a hundred gathered on the Tower grounds. According to some accounts, there were signs that Howard was not fully resigned to his fate, constantly looking behind him as he marched to the scaffold, holding out hope for a reprieve that he kept until the blindfold was tied over his eyes. Two strokes severed the head from the body, the lips reportedly still moving in prayer as it fell. Thus passed one of the most cunning statesmen of Tudor England.”</p><p>— Celestiel Gale, <em>House of Treason</em></p><p> </p><p><a id="return9.4" name="return9.4"></a>“Both Henry and his wife remained in the Tower as Mary consolidated her reign, kept in comfortable and honourable imprisonment after they were removed from the royal chambres. The Emperor wrote letters to the queen, urging her to take action against him, but Mary had written back, saying that she ‘could not be induced to consent that her brother should die, owing to the childhood they had shared in the nursery and the great love their father the King had borne him.’<sup>[<a href="#note9.4">4</a>]</sup> In the meanwhile, Henry wrote his own letter to Mary, confessing that he had known nothing about the plot to crown him king, that he had never consented to any of his father-in-law’s machinations, and that he had gladly relinquished all titles that rightfully belonged to Mary, signing the letter with the words ‘Her Majesty’s leal servant, Henry.’</p><p>The Queen acknowledged Henry’s submission, granting him clemency and allowing him to keep the style of Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Upon the relentless petitions of his mother, Baroness Clinton, and his mother-in-law, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, Henry, his wife Mary, and his brother-in-law, who was allowed to keep the title of Earl of Surrey despite his father’s attainder, were finally released from the Tower on Palm Sunday, the 9th of April.”</p><p>— Medea Fitzroy, <em>“I am Her Majesty’s leal servant”: The Story of Henry Fitzroy, the Nine Days’ King</em></p><p> </p><p>“Why George Boleyn was not charged along with his sister is a different question. It is possible that Mary’s association with the Parkers may have influenced this decision, as it is true that Jane had interceded with the queen on her husband’s behalf and was later on appointed as one of her chief ladies-in-waiting. Lady Rochford’s own friendship with the Secretary Cromwell may have also played a hand, as it is known that Cromwell looked after her interests with utmost importance.</p><p>Whatever the case, George was banished from court on the second half of February 1536, his administrative offices stripped away and parcelled off to Mary’s chief supporters. However, he was allowed to keep the title of Earl of Wiltshire and retire to the family estate of Hever Castle, where a month later, he laid to rest in the chapel the unfortunate Boleyn patriarch Thomas.”</p><p>— Immaculata Applegarth, <em>Intrigue at the Tudor Court</em></p><p> </p><p>“A week after Mary had entered London, and exactly a month after the king’s death, Henry VIII’s coffin was brought by hearse from Greenwich Palace to St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, where he had designated his own burial place in 1517. Some weeks before, Katherine’s own hearse had already been sent for from Peterborough, while Italian craftsmen were commissioned to carve an effigy bearing the likeness of the king and queen to place over their shared tomb as a marker.</p><p>After a short sermon from Mary’s confessor, Katherine’s coffin was lowered into the vault, followed shortly after by the husband who had betrayed her in life. Henry’s officials broke their staves over the grave after his coffin was laid in the ground, to indicate that their service to him was over. Mary was not present at her parents’ funeral, according to custom, but her hold on the throne would have been assured by the Garter King of Arms proclaiming her as Queen, the sentiment echoed by all those who were present as the trumpets erupted into cheer.”</p><p>— Alastair Goodlowe, <em>Henry Rex</em></p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><a id="note9.1" name="note9.1"></a><sup>1</sup> Sir Giles, Baron Clinton, Charles Brandon, and Harry Percy were all present IOTL during Anne’s trial as well. <sup>[<a href="#return9.1">return to text</a>]</sup></p><p><a id="note9.2" name="note9.2"></a><sup>2</sup> Some of these come from the sentence of Anne IOTL as well, actually. <sup>[<a href="#return9.2">return to text</a>]</sup></p><p><a id="note9.3" name="note9.3"></a><sup>3</sup> This comes from the story where Anne begs Lady Kingston to ask for Mary’s pardon on her behalf before her execution. <sup>[<a href="#return9.3">return to text</a>]</sup></p><p><a id="note9.4" name="note9.4"></a><sup>4</sup> We <em>don’t</em> know where Fitzroy spent his childhood exactly, but there’s a theory he and Mary actually shared a nursery before Mary was sent to Ludlow and Fitzroy was created Duke of Richmond. <sup>[<a href="#return9.4">return to text</a>]</sup></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Vivat Regina</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Some in Mary’s council argued that the Queen call for an assembly of Parliament before her coronation, so that they may establish and confirm the legitimacy of her reign and ‘undo the declaration of bastardy made by the self-same body during the reign of our late King Henry.’ Mary refused to call for an assembly until two days after her coronation, but during the month between it and her accession, she designated Cromwell to draft the legislation to be laid before them since, as she writes to her aunt Margaret of Scotland in their correspondence, ‘he had been the author of my present illegitimate state, thus he would serve me well by unwriting it also.’ Mary needed her legitimacy to be writ in English law, not on shady Papal pronouncement, so that she could satisfy the qualms of both Catholics and Evangelicals, no matter how distasteful she had found the latter.</p><p>The act of Parliament that was passed in both houses in early April 1536 declared ‘the validity of the state of matrimony between our late King Henry and the sainted Queen Katharine which hath continued in great felicity and contentment these past twenty years,’ and through the use of superfluous metaphors relating her to the Serpent in Eden, though without naming her directly, the legislation places the blame solely on the Marquess of Pembroke’s shoulders for ‘insinuating with wicked malice and blemishing the King’s conscience with doubt upon the sanctity of his marriage, causing him to set aside his true wife and place his soul within mortal peril.’</p><p>In the second section of the act, perhaps inserted by Cromwell to absolve himself of any blame, the law makes it clear that the Archbishop Cranmer was the author of this affront, claiming that it was he who ‘refused to hear the Queen’s testimonies or peruse the evidence she hath laid out to defend against the attack upon her marriage, declaring with the basest of lies that the union was null and void,’ and that believing these lies, Parliament mistakenly changed the succession and declared Mary illegitimate. The present Queen therefore, ‘could not let her character be so besmirched.’</p><p>Finally, the act reiterates that the marriage had the blessing of God, since ‘within this holy union, our Realm of England flourished in a great many degrees, but that the malicious destruction of the marriage by those that hath since been mentioned caused a great many calumnies upon these lands,’ blaming the king’s Great Matter and the annulment for the outbreaks of the Sweat and the destruction of the monasteries. For this reason, the act resolves to ‘restore that holy matrimony, legitimise the fruit of that union, and thus restore peace and harmony upon our Realm of England.’</p><p>Parliament had written Mary a bastard, and Parliament had erased it. Mary had reclaimed her own legitimacy, restored the family she had been denied for years, and in a masterstroke, achieved her revenge against the ones who, in her mind, deprived her of that family in the first place.”</p><p>— Alexandra Huber, <em>Princess, Bastard, Queen: Elizabeth of York and her granddaughters</em></p><p> </p><p>“The traitors to be punished, the allies to be rewarded, and the legislations to be drafted, Mary set about to plan her coronation. There were not precedents to be followed; the <em>Liber Regalis</em> made no such provisions for the coronation of a reigning queen, and the Empress Maude had not yet been crowned before her cousin Stephen had stolen the throne. As such, the rituals that had been devised became a mishmash, of man and woman, of king and consort.</p><p>It was decided that the coronation take place on the 25th of March, an auspicious date. It was the Annunciation, the most holy of the Marian feast days, when the Archangel Gabriel came down to tell the Virgin Mary that she was to bear the Child Christ in her womb. For the rest of her reign, Mary would continually lean into the Marian imagery, presenting herself as both virgin queen and mother to her people.</p><p>Mary arrived by barge at the Tower of London on the 22nd of March, leaving her residence in Greenwich to prepare for her consecration, escorted by the Lord Mayor of London, the aldermen and all the companies in their barges. Upon her entry into the Watergate, cannons fired their thunderous salutes.</p><p>Two days later, Mary deputized her uncle Suffolk to take the oaths of the newly created Knights of the Bath in her name, citing the obvious impropriety of a virgin maiden partaking in the bathing and robing rituals of this ultramasculine sphere. Already, tradition was being redefined.</p><p>On the morning of her coronation, Mary departed from the royal lodgings in the Tower, where just a month ago, Anne Boleyn had taken up residence before her trial. The Queen was borne in a six-horse open litter, wearing her hair loose beneath a great jeweled headdress and attired in a mantle and kirtle of cloth of gold. Here, Mary was following the rules for a queen consort. The litter followed behind the Sword of State, carried upon horseback by the Earl of Rutland, the same military symbol that had caused a stir during her grandmother Isabel’s coronation.</p><p>The pageantry for the procession became an outline for the Marian propaganda in later years. Actors dressed as the Virgin Mary with the Child Christ and accompanied by the Saints Catherine and George greeted her litter, urging her to rule well and just. Saint George was obviously the personification for England, while Saint Catherine was used to evoke memories of her mother, and the Virgin Mary and the Child Christ to remind the onlookers that the Queen’s first duty was to provide the realm with an heir. Four children also greeted her in another pageant, the personifications of Virtue, Grace, Nature, and Charity, becoming traits for a maiden Queen. On the other hand, more militaristic aspects of kingship were also present, albeit taking a female form in the personas of Pallas Athene, Boudica, and Judith.</p><p>Just before noon, Mary entered Westminster Abbey, now dressed in the traditional velvet crimson state robes of a king, walking barefoot beneath a canopy borne by the barons of the Cinque Ports. Again, Mary was defying gender precedents; queens consort of the past were borne by litter into the abbey. The Sword of State was still carried by Rutland, while the Duke of Suffolk carried the crown, the Marquess of Dorset the orb, and the Earl of Cumberland the ball and sceptre. Mary’s train, on the other hand, was carried by the Countess of Salisbury and the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk.</p><p>The high pulpit was laid with blue cloth, while the stage royal was covered with cloth of gold and strewn with cushions also of the same cloth. In the centre of this stage, St. Edward’s Chair stood proud. In its long history, the throne had seated every King of England since Edward the Confessor. For the first time ever, it would now enthrone a reigning Queen. Mary was led to each of the four corners of the platform, so that the congregation might glimpse her; this congregation would then acclaim her as their sovereign. In turn, Mary swore an oath to maintain the laws and customs of England, prostrating herself by the altar.</p><p>After this, Mary changed clothes once again, switching from the velvet crimson mantle to a simple purple velvet petticoat, and, with a canopy held over her by four Knights of the Garter, anointed on her shoulders, breast, forehead, and temples with holy oil, the same as done for a king rather than a consort. Mary was then dressed in a white taffeta robe, while a cloth was used to dry her, gloves worn over her hands, and a coif put over her head to protect the site of her anointment, all in linen. From her premiere noblemen, she received the spurs, the sword, the orb, and held the king’s sceptre in her right hand. In her left, she was handed the queen’s sceptre, giving the appearance that Mary was being coronated as king and queen both.</p><p>Finally, she was crowned with three crowns: the crown of St. Edward, the imperial crown of the realm, and her own personal crown which she had first worn while fighting for her rights in Elsyngs. As the choir sang a chorus of Te Deums, the crimson mantle lined with ermine was fastened on her shoulders, and Mary sat in St. Edward’s Chair, receiving the oaths of the gathered nobles to their new queen.”</p><p>— Mara Russel, <em>Veritas Temporis Filia: England’s First Queen</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Marry, Mistress Mary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Regnant queen though she was, Marie, like all other noblewomen of her era, was still expected to marry. The English were naturally mistrustful of a woman in charge, as the memories of Marguerite d’Anjou and the devastations brought about by the War of the Roses were still fresh in the minds of many. Marie’s councillors, therefore, sought to bridle the young queen by binding her to a husband, preferably of their own choosing, who could govern both the queen and her country. Above all, Marie as the sole legal heir of the Tudor dynasty had the obligation to preserve the natural flow of the succession with the production of sons, in their eyes the only responsibility a queen should have.</p><p>While Marie’s predecessors were allowed to choose their consorts, both houses of parliament sought to undermine Marie’s royal prerogative on the basis that it would be unseemly for a woman to choose her own betrothed. Moreover, Parliament was apprehensive that a foreign match would make England subservient to another foreign power. Pamphlets were widely disseminated amongst the commons within a week of Marie’s coronation, warning against the dangers of female rule and of the loss of the kingdom’s sovereignty should the queen marry.</p><p>One such pamphlet eventually made it into the queen’s hands, smuggled by one of her ladies who had snatched it from her husband’s papers. Marie, possessing her father’s infamously volatile temper, cast the parchment into the fire, raging before she took to her quill, writing thus to her councillors:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>‘Sirs! Wouldst thou have talked to my father as such? Thy duty is to serve your sovereign, not seek to rule in her behalf or undermine her divine rights. We shall marry, aye, but it shall be to our own choosing, at a time more convenient to us and us alone.’</p>
</blockquote><p>Marie, her Privy Council was soon finding out, was no child king nor meek woman to be hectored. This was a sovereign who sought to preserve her own autonomy, as her father had done before her.”</p><p>— Àurea Carcellé, <em>Feme Sole: Les Reines Indomptables du XVIe Siècle</em></p><p> </p><p>“The Queen, as a young and handsome woman of twenty, was a tantalizing catch for the flower of English nobility. Sixteenth-century English law dictated that all of a woman’s titles and incomes would pass to her husband upon marriage, and those with courtly ambitions had hoped that Mary would not be exempt from it either. Chief among them were the Countess of Salisbury’s unwed son, Reginald Pole, who, while a deacon, was still not ordained, and therefore could still wed. Another candidate, though not seriously considered, was the Catholic son of the Earl of Oxford, who’d defied his Protestant father allied with the Howards by supporting Mary in her bid for the throne.</p><p>Alas, they were wrong. A month after her coronation, a bill was laid before Parliament, reiterating that as an anointed sovereign, Mary’s power and status as sole ruler would not be diminished by a marriage, foreign or otherwise, and that whoever may become her consort shall be ‘able to aid the Queen’s highness,’ but that he shall ‘not partake in the governing of the estates of the Realm, nor seek to influence the laws or customs of the said Realm of England.’</p><p>Many at court cried foul at the unnaturalness of the bill, citing that as a woman, Mary should be subservient to her lord husband, no matter how high her rank may be. Still, the bill easily passed through both houses, establishing the fact that a woman can rule in her own right.”</p><p>— Immaculata Applegarth,<em> Intrigue at the Tudor Court</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Any complaint, violent reactions, or maybe actual praise, I redirect you to <a href="https://ranichi17.tumblr.com/">my blog</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>